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There's no place for ego in a roomful of children From the editor by Tim Miejan Not too long ago, I visited with some of my former colleagues at the daily paper in St. Joseph, Mo., where I had worked as a reporter and editor for a dozen years prior to coming to The EDGE. We shot the breeze and traded stories and caught up with each other as best we could in the time we had. I shared about how challenging marriage and raising a child has been, and I shared that I have yelled more than in the past six years than I ever had in my life. A friend, Eric, who has the sharpest photographic eye I've ever seen, was quick to argue that point. "You never get angry," he said. "Well, it's not easy raising a teenage boy," I snapped back. Eric has stepchildren of his own and acknowledged that it's not easy. While we talked, I thought about all of the times in the past six years that I have raised my voice. Episodes began running through my mind like a past-life review. I saw myself sitting angry in my car after pulling to the shoulder, helpless as a young boy refused to listen. I saw myself sitting angry in my bedroom after a yelling match, in which a young boy shouted back at me with as much force as I was directing to him. Dozens of such encounters and headaches later, I am finally understanding that children don't respond to yelling. They don't now and they never did. Yelling at children is emotional assault. Streams of powerful energy invade these young human beings. As a result, they either fight back with as much force as they have, or they withdraw and accept defeat like a wounded dog. Parents who unleash verbal and emotionally draining tirades often mistake a child who becomes silent as one who is listening and understanding. Unfortunately, what the child is doing is adding one more brick to a wall that offers escape and safety from a world of pain. What we're left with is a group of alienated children who resort to coping with their unpleasant situations in ways unique to each of them. New energies What makes the situation even more explosive, and potentially damaging for children and our society as a whole, is the fact that our children are different beings than we were as children. The term "Indigo Child" may not be commonly understood or accepted yet in mainstream society, but the fact remains that our children are coming into their bodies with a more acute sensitivity to energies around them (light, sound, temperature, emotion) and do not respond to attempts by older people to control and manipulate them. Because they are highly intelligent, self-possessed and supercharged with energy, the mundane, ritualistic, uncreative and often rote way that adults live bore these children to death. They are tuning out and becoming alienated from such situations, and they're finding comfort and joy when they are allowed to spend time with those of like energy. They are noncomformists to the nth degree, and they thrive when adults let them have a say in choices that are made, even to the point of choosing their own consequences when their behavior is inappropriate. Children today are not willing to sit around silent, building walls around themselves and turning a deaf ear to interference coming from all directions. They are movers and shakers. If they are ignored and disrespected, some Indigos will act out in incredibly destructive ways, as Columbine and other school tragedies have demonstrated. Other types of Indigos are willing to wait for their moment to shine, but don't be fooled by their complacency. Our challenge I write about Indigos and other children who carry higher vibrations of energy because it is vital that we begin to think about children in a new way. Instead of seeing them as small people who must learn how to do everything we tell them, we must view them as highly evolved beings who have come here to help us change our world in ways we only imagined. Instead of controlling and manipulating them and trying to squeeze them into our busy schedules, it is time we gave them more respect. I'd tell you to begin treating them as adults, but that wouldn't go over very well, so let me put it a different way: Begin treating them as extraterrestrial beings of light who have come here disguised as children. I guarantee that once you give them that amount of respect, and cooperate with them and speak with them with love and reason, you'll be serving the best interests of all involved. One day during a shouting match with my youngster, who is steadily growing as tall as me, I chose a new tactic: Love. He was full of anger and revenge and all he wanted was for me to leave him alone. Instead, I draped my arms around him and hugged him and sent him love and told him I loved him. He didn't care at the moment for me to be so close, but I have to think that replacing my anger with love, that seeing the situation from a more loving rather than ego-filled perspective, did a world of good. Believe me when I tell you that it's still a bumpy ride. Living with an Indigo teen is not easy. But it's worth the experience. Tim Miejan is editor of The EDGE. Contact him at (651) 578-8969 or toll-free 1 (888) 776-5687. E-mail editor@edgenews.com Copyright (c) 2002 Tim Miejan |
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June 2002 |
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